The present invention relates generally to gardening tools, and, more particularly, to copper plated gardening tools.
The Chinese began to smelt bronze in the Xia Dynasty (21st-16th centuries BC). About 5,000 years ago, people began to extract brass from ore to make small objects with the cold-forging technique. Then they added a certain percentage of tin to lower the melting point and increase solidity. Tin gave brass a bluish tinge, and the alloy became known as bronze, which in Chinese simply means bluish copper. In the Shang Dynasty, bronze smelting became the most important branch of the handicraft industries. Shang bronzes come in many varieties, chiefly ritual objects, wine vessels, weapons, musical instruments and food containers. Many ritual bronzes were engraved with records of the military exploits of rulers, which are extremely valuable for historical research. Bronze working reached its prime in the Spring and Autumn Period, which covered the period from 770 to 476 BC. Ancient people who used Bronze had secrets of their own for tempering or hardening it in a way which has been lost and never rediscovered. The modern man who made himself a razor of bronze would have a very poor time if he tried to shave with it, but the ancients made sickles, knives, swords, spears, saws, and razors out of this metal. Bronze was the metal used by the old Egyptians in all their wonderful works, and the Greeks, Etruscans, and early Romans were almost entirely dependent on bronze. Iron tools were forbidden in Ancient Greek temples, and the Roman priests of Jupiter used bronze and avoided iron tools for cutting their hair and nails. We find quantities of bronze implements in ancient tombs and have discovered that the usual alloy was nine parts of copper to one of tin. In India, for example, metal-working is most closely associated with the tribal peoples, particularly those of the Vindhyas. Iron is considered the metal of the Sudras, or lowest caste, while copper was assigned to the highest caste Brahmins.
Copper has been shown to be an important element in the growth of plants as it promotes chlorophyll development and improved plant health. Copper is also a known natural fungicide and bactericide, and thereby improves the soil conditions resulting in increased plant growth. Furthermore, copper in the soil is known to repel snails and slugs, which allows the plants to grow unmolested by these pests in a relatively chemical free environment.
Recently, inspired by early research and findings, gardening watering cans, plant pots, and tools made of copper or high copper containing alloys are gaining popularity with gardening hobbyists who want to take advantage of copper's beneficial properties. While hand tools have been produced of copper metal as far back as several millennia, there is a significant disadvantage to pure copper tools in that copper itself is a relatively soft metal, and gardening tools made of copper tend to deform under working loads.
Thus copper metal is not the preferred choice of material for use in tools such as trowels, spades, hoes, shovels, rakes and the like, which are required to have a certain degree of strength and hardness in order to perform their functions. Not surprisingly, the use of copper metal in such tools has been largely replaced by other materials such as; iron, nylon plastic, aluminum, ceramic, fiberglass composite, carbon fiber composite, epoxy resin, and steel.
As such, what is needed in the art are gardening tools that provide all of the beneficial properties of prior art copper gardening tools, that have the requisite strength, and that are able to be mass produced and are less costly to manufacture.